> A good software engineer will know that there are limits to his capabilities, so my point is that in practice it's useless to differentiate between "merely difficult and potentially expensive and risky investments of time" and "knowably impossible", because, with the resources at hand, the former will, in fact, be impossible.
In practice, many of the most useful things to invest time and energy in are difficult, potentially expensive, and risky (often, because of the risk, you want to dual track this with a less-risky, lower-payoff approach) things that have high payoffs if successful.
OTOH, the knowably impossible things are dead ends. So, no, they aren't the same thing in practice.
In practice, many of the most useful things to invest time and energy in are difficult, potentially expensive, and risky (often, because of the risk, you want to dual track this with a less-risky, lower-payoff approach) things that have high payoffs if successful.
OTOH, the knowably impossible things are dead ends. So, no, they aren't the same thing in practice.